If you feel you often have to interrupt your typing to move your mouse around and click on it to open applications or websites, then SlickRun is the perfect power toy for you. It’s just a small application that can either stay in your tray until you call for it or that can display a small semi-transparent prompt where you can type in configurable commands that it will launch.

Options include the ability to open the SlickRun prompt wherever your mouse cursor is at the moment you invoke it with its keyboard shortcut (by default the Windows key + Q, but it’s configurable). I just love it. You can chain commands together, easily add complex commands to open specific folders or websites, the list is endless.

To help you type less, it has built-in autocompletion, meaning that usually only the first 2-3 letters of a command are enough.

For instance, I have created commands for opening Visual Studio with various projects preloaded, to open the Add Remove Programs control panel (just create a command that runs appwiz.cpl) and even one to open TrueCrypt so it just has to ask me my password to mount the encrypted password file that I have on my USB memory key (passing to truecyrpt.exe the options /lz /q /e /v "E:\Crypt\Passwords.crypt").

Give it a shot, it’s free, but if you use and like it please consider a small offering to the developer so he gets the motivation to carry on working on it.

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This is a simple technical weblog where I dump thoughts and experiences from my computer-related world. It is mostly focused on software development but I also have wider interests and dabble in architecture, business and system administration.More About me…